A Reconstruction Success in Haiti?

This article is about a development called Village La Difference, which was meant to provide housing for earthquake survivors but ended up with more of an assortment of residents due to amenities like reliable electricity . In this Village, a group of women and garment workers from the local industrial park support each other in hopes that the development won’t become another failure of Haiti’s reconstruction.

‘Women aren’t a broom to be left in the corner’

After Haiti’s disastrous earthquake in 2010, foreign aid poured into the country. Much of it went to long-term efforts to get people employed and housed. But results have been disappointing.

The US Agency for International Development, for example, initially pledged to construct 15,000 permanent houses; only 906 have been built. Most of them are in one remote development in Haiti’s north called Village la Difference. It’s a $33 million project that was supposed to serve people displaced by the earthquake, but it took so long to build — opening more than three years after the disaster — that much of the target population had already relocated.

The residents are a mix of earthquake victims and people barely affected by the disaster. They came here to live in better homes with amenities rarely available in Haiti — like running water and reliable power — and access to jobs to pay for such luxuries.

Women are at the center of an effort make this place a long-term success. Residents know the risk of shiny developments like this falling into disrepair and becoming bad places to live.